Plasma questions.

Guest

Hi,
be gentle to me everyone as this is my first post, I am expecting delivery tomorrow (Wednesday) of a new 42" Panasonic Viera, what I would like to know is what are the do`s and dont`s of owning a Plasma tv?, I have sky+ and I sometimes put it on pause for long periods (half hour 'ish' at a time) should I stop doing this?, also what are the best settings for running in?.

Standard Member

Thanks Tarsh. I am getting a Panny 42PWD7 tomorrow and have been searching again this evening on the subect of running in period. Have checked your link out and it was very helpfull. I did a '200 hours' search last night and it does throw up a lot of results.

Have seen remarks about Digital Video Essentials DVD. Firstly is it worth getting? If it is, should I get it to help with setup during running in period or is it only usefull when it's run in?

Active Member

You have bought about the most bullet-proof plasma screen on the market so far as screen burn is concerned. When it arrives (and you will love it!) change the "picture" setting from dynamic to cinema and for the first 100 or so hours knock brightness down by a few notches. Don't leave static images on the screen for 30 minutes, 5 wont be a problem. Get DVE if you want to DIY but before I started doing calibration professionally I made my TV look a lot worse after playing with DVE! To be fair I now use DVE as part of every ISF calibration - you just have to know how to use it! To get the best out of the great panel that you are receiving tomorrow check my sig below!!

Standard Member

Thanks for your response. Plasma arrived, unfortunately was sent silver stand and not black as per order, so have only connected up digi box to quintro+ RGB switch box. Will sort out more permanant connection setup when correct stand arrives. Very pleased with my purchase though. Don't know if it was just me being tired after a long day but lip sinc seemed to drift a bit. I have only just seen your settings suggestions so will do that tomorrow.

Guest

Thanks for all the info, The new Plasma arrived yesterday, and included for 'free' was a small scratch on the front panel, so they will be delivering my new 'new' Plasma on Sunday . Thanks again, great forum by the way .

Well-known Member

1) Never use dynamic mode on the Viera. colour balance and white deatail are all over the place, plus the default contrast is to high. I am fairly certain that the dynamic mode is put on this plasma just to help show it off in the show room
2)As Piers has said above, put it in cinema mode and keep the settings low for about 100 hours of use. This is when the plasma is at its most vunarable to screen burn (although the panasonics are now very resistant to it)
3) Use a calibration disc such as DVE or AVAI to proberly set brightness, colour, sharpness, ect, once the plasma has been run in. If you dont have one of these then you can use the THX optimser that is found on some DVDs such as the starwars ones. However the THX optimser is designed for that specific dvd so only use it as a ruff guide.
4) IF you know what you are doing, overscan can also be adjusted if needed, by using the DVE disc test patterens. However, If you are not sure how to do this then leave it alone. You can do more damage than good if you mess around in the service menu with out knowing what you are doing.
5) To obtain optimum picture a pro ISF calibration can be done to the screen. This is done by a qualified isf engineer with colour analiser equipment and other devices. THIS IS WELL WORTH THE MONEY (Piers, or gordon from these forums will be able to do this for you)

Conections.
1) Sky digital/sky plus to AV1. Make sure that sky is set to RGB and 16:9 wide mode for best picture.
2)DVD player is best when conected to the componenet inputs of the Viera. If you do not have a DVD player with component out puts then use RGB/ Svideo conected to AV4. AV4 is a shared input and will take all these signals, plus standard composite is needed.

Standard Member

Thanks Piers, have used your suggestions for settings and looking good. AV-sales are sending out new stand tomorrow so saturday can get permanent set up sorted and finally see a DVD on it. Can't wait!!!

Sound still seems to drift in and slightly out of sync. Will search for thread on subject. Any advice.

Guest

Conections.
1) Sky digital/sky plus to AV1. Make sure that sky is set to RGB and 16:9 wide mode for best picture.
2)DVD player is best when conected to the componenet inputs of the Viera. If you do not have a DVD player with component out puts then use RGB/ Svideo conected to AV4. AV4 is a shared input and will take all these signals, plus standard composite is needed.

I have setup the Viera as follows:
1. Sky+ to AV1 (via scart) not a good picture but it`s watchable.
2. Dvd to AV2 (via Scart) great picture.

Has anyone got any advice as to any changes I can make to improve the Sky+ picture?.
Regards NESSIE

Standard Member

Ok, replacement stand has arrived and tomorrow I can get it all correctly set up. Have been looking at my scart cables and the only good quality one I have is the one I used to connect straight in to old crt TV from DVD player. Connections a bit different now. Can anyone suggest good quality (but not very expensive) scart cables?